The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker

This book came highly recommended to me by a number of co workers and other people that have since assumed a very special place in my life. I read during a period in my life that was particularly trying and it really, really hit home, additionally helping me overcome the stressful thing in my life. This book is a primer on violence written by someone who has a tremendous amount of personal and professional experience in dealing with violence. This book singularly changed MY life as far as my personal and intimate relationships go and I am forever indebted to the book and its author for the role it played in changing the course of MY life.

In short, this book is a brilliantly written discourse and analysis of various, common forms of violence. The reader is given many different perspectives during the course of the analysis - from the victim's perspective, the investigator's perspective and other outsider's perspective - in order to demonstrate to the reader that patterns exist that can lead us to predict violence or, at the very least, to trust our basic, gut level instincts. This book was thought provoking and well thought out. DeBecker uses case studies effectively in attempting to convince the reader of the truth and accuracy of his arguments. It was very, very well thought out.

In my life, shortly after reading this book, I had contact with an old friend relatively shortly after reading this book.  At the time, I had just come out of a difficult personal relationship and wasn't looking for anything. In talking to him, my instinct was to just ask this person out and see where it went.  I'm very, very glad that I did because I'm the happiest that I've been for a while and all because I trusted what my instinct was telling me.